Welcome

Welcome to the POZ/AIDSmeds Community Forums, a round-the-clock discussion area for people with HIV/AIDS, their friends/family/caregivers, and
others concerned about HIV/AIDS. Click on the links below to browse our various forums; scroll down for a glance at the most recent posts; or join in the
conversation yourself by registering on the left side of this page.

Privacy Warning: Please realize that these forums are open to all, and are fully searchable via Google and other search engines. If you are HIV positive
and disclose this in our forums, then it is almost the same thing as telling the whole world (or at least the World Wide Web). If this concerns you, then do not use a
username or avatar that are self-identifying in any way. We do not allow the deletion of anything you post in these forums, so think before you post.

The information shared in these forums, by moderators and members, is designed to complement, not replace, the relationship between an individual and his/her own
physician.

All members of these forums are, by default, not considered to be licensed medical providers. If otherwise, users must clearly define themselves as such.

Forums members must behave at all times with respect and honesty. Posting guidelines, including time-out and banning policies, have been established by the moderators
of these forums. Click here for “Am I Infected?” posting guidelines. Click here for posting guidelines pertaining to all other POZ/AIDSmeds community forums.

We ask all forums members to provide references for health/medical/scientific information they provide, when it is not a personal experience being discussed. Please
provide hyperlinks with full URLs or full citations of published works not available via the Internet. Additionally, all forums members must post information which are
true and correct to their knowledge.

A month after I moved into our first home, it was announced that a Formula 1 track was being built nearby. Fast-forward to now: Formula 1 hasn’t been in America for several years, and in case you didn’t know, it’s a high-end international sporting event. Filthy rich people come from all over the world expecting to snort and screw whatever they can. And some ordinary people go, too, like my co-worker, whose boyfriend paid about a thousand bucks for grandstand seats and another three hundred for three days of parking.

But there’s not enough parking for 80 or 100 or 300 thousand people, nobody’s sure how many are coming, especially for Day 3 which is the inaugural American Grand Prix at the new Circuit of the Americas, the northwest corner of which is one kilometer—two thousand feet—from our property. A lot of folks are coming to Elroy via shuttle buses.

Basically, we’re semi-prisoners in our neighborhood. I worked form home on Friday. The one road which runs by our neighborhood is only open to taxis, outbound shuttles, and local traffic. And the local traffic angle is what we haven’t been able to gauge; we’ve seen people coming and going for the past two days, but only before noon. We don’t know if our road is blocked off to inbound traffic in the afternoon, or anything. If we wanted to go, we couldn’t walk there even though it’s a few blocks away. No pedestrian traffic allowed. We would have to drive into the city, pay to park, and then take a shuttle back to the COTA which is a stone’s piss from our house.

It’s also oddly quiet, like a lot of the neighbors left. In anticipation of fuck-all, they closed the Del Valle schools on Friday and are not opening up for another week. Seriously. We think we might be able to get into the city just fine, but are worried about getting home. They were supposed to send us notices, have people canvas the neighborhood, all kinds of stuff to tell us how to deal with this shit, but the only reality we have is the loud, weird alien/siren sounds of Formula One cars and the newscasts telling us how fabulous the whole weekend is going, and how lucky we are not to get rain. Lucky! Really? After years of drought?

All I can say is, I hope those rich mofo’s drop a lot of coin into the local economy, and that the 30% chance of rain on Monday washes those rich mofo’s outta here.

Is this an annual event? If so then next year you may want to consider renting out your residence and going on vacation. People where I live do that for furniture market and get ridiculous rental prices.

We live about five miles away from Heartland Park in Topeka. When we are outside we can hear the dragsters rev and race every weekend. The main boulevard to the race track is impassible at certain times each weekend from all the traffic leaving the venue at the end of the day.

If I were you, I'd contact your local police/traffic bureau and see what they say about street closings during the racing events. I bet the authorities will just close the same streets each time. Once you know the pattern, you'll be able to adjust your travels accordingly.

We live about five miles away from Heartland Park in Topeka. When we are outside we can hear the dragsters rev and race every weekend. The main boulevard to the race track is impassible at certain times each weekend from all the traffic leaving the venue at the end of the day.

If I were you, I'd contact your local police/traffic bureau and see what they say about street closings during the racing events. I bet the authorities will just close the same streets each time. Once you know the pattern, you'll be able to adjust your travels accordingly.

I lived directly beside Piedmont Park in ATL. I had to deal with: Pride, The Dogwood Festival, The Jazz Festival, Music Midtown and Screen on the Green every week in between through the summer. Oh...and local parties like the Draft On Taft. In other words: basically something every weekend for about half the year.

Cope.

That's all I know to tell you. If all that traffic is locked down, surely there are cops patrolling. Have you walked up to one and asked if there is some sort of procedure so neighborhood folks can get out? We had decals issued to us.

Once this mess is over, you need to contact your local reps, write a letter to the paper or hell...call the local news right now if you want to and tell them what a disaster it is for you. They may be interested in hearing what you have to say. It would help if you could round up a few neighbors to gripe with you.

I know what I'm talking about here. I went door to door with petitions and stuff when I had to. Emded up getting designated neighborhood decal parking year round. Towing enforced.

I have an idea of what you feel Basquo. My old neighborhood had the Miami Dolphins' stadium dropped right down in the middle of it during the late 80's; this would cause the area to be on lockdown due to traffic issues during home games on Sunday. It was much worse back then because the roads going to it had yet to be widened like they are now.

Since they have parking issues over there have you thought about making some easy extra cash by offering parking? My dad use to do this, he called it divorce money.

Renting out parking spaces is not a viable option--believe me, I thought about it--because ~supposedly~ no pedestrian traffic is allowed in. I did see on the news that there are some landowners by the big "main" entrance that are charging money for people to park and walk in, but they're definitely no letting people walk in on our side of the mess. If they were. people would be parking all up and down our streets, and we don't see that as yet. Today is the Grand Prix itself so maybe it'll be different. I know that if taxis let their fares out to walk in before getting to the entrance proper, the Sheriff's boys are ticketing them.

House rentals in the city are going for as much as $70,000 for really nice houses in the city, and the city is where people want to stay. That's where all the pre and post festivities are. A huge fan fest which is keeping a chuck of downtown blocked off to traffice for a week, parties and balls 'til 4am, Flo Rida, Nelly and Enrique doing concerts...no one wants to stay by the track itself. Why shell out some money to stay near the track in a lower middle class neighborhood without even a convenience store nearby (we really are out in the sticks) and then not be able to walk to your destination? You'd have to drive into town, pay somewhere to park if you could find it, then take a shuttle back, or at least drive a few miles up the toll road to join the inbound queue, spend an hour and a half in that, then pay hundreds to park...and then walk at least 2km to the grandstand.

Yes, I looked into all the ways this could benefit me, and all it's doing is fucking the locals except for the one gas station and the one tiny diner in Elroy, but they've been doing boon business since construction started. The people who approved this--and it was never up to the public to decide, and spend all this money (5 million a year I think for the F1 license, yep you have to pay them to come to your town)--tried to tell us it was something everyone could enjoy. Tell that to some of the families struggling to make their house payments and now have to scramble to find day care or not work because the schools are closed for an extra 3 days leading up to the holiday. I'm sure they have an extra grand to take their families to COTA to sit on some grassy knolls and pay $12 dollars for a beer.

This time next year might be a good time to drive to the South Plains and visit Mom.

Creighton I feel your pain.... I have relatives who live in a condo in the city right near the Capitol...some rich guy bought the two top floors of the building (4 units) and spent nearly $1million remodeling it so he could come to see the events each year besides the condos he gets four parking spaces in the garage....... I guess if you have more money than you can count it is OK to just throw it away sure sounds like a very expensive "event ticket" to me The relatives are spending the week here in Dallas to avoid the mess there

Nick almost forgot the guy submitted a request to build a Helipad on the roof of the building ...no action on that yet

Nick, you're right. It does suck for some of the folks living downtown, too, especially if they need to get to the office on a weekend. If they live in a condo that's in the "roped off" area, they'll have to walk to the nearest border and get some type of public transport. But they did choose to live downtown.

That helps put it in a better perspective to me. That and the fact that I just found out we're not actually prisoners as some neighbors and TV stations are reporting.

This is how I found out: After my last post, I was on my last nerve. Santi and I have been getting along swimmingly considering we've been isolated together for 2 days in this house, but I'm used to going into the city everyday unless I'm sick. It was around 11 that I decided damn it, I was going into town.

There was way more traffic on our road than usual, but I didn't have to wait but 3 or 4 minutes before I could turn onto it. I was stopped at 3 intersections with officers directing traffic, and once I was by the rural park it was business as usual except for a few crazy drivers. I took a back way into South Austin and killed a little bit of time at Lowe's before going to the big Mexican grocery for some fresh seafood. Fresh as in, it's swimming around in huge tanks and they catch it, whack it, chop it and scale it and hand it to you still flopping. I opted for some lobsters. then I went back to Lowe's and bought a new orchid plant for Santi.

Coming back, there was even less hassle. I thought I would have to show ID or something to avoid being routed back towards town but I just pointed at the road in front of me and they waved me through.

So thanks for all the comraderie! I can officially say, it's not nearly as bad as we were told and we feared. Just noisy right now. And it'll be a mess around 4 when the race is over but by that time on Sundays we're working on dinner and not going anywhere. I just really, really hope it pumps some serious money into Austin's economy, and makes it worth everything our tax dollars are paying for and more.

Yes, as for pointing and getting waved through: I've discovered most traffic guides have learned the art of reading the level of pissed-off-edness on someone's face to know right off if they are legitly in the neighborhood.

Still...the points remain: these sort of things will almost NEVER get a genuine public vote - and even if they do, somehow and someway there will be a wiggle made that tips it in favor of the few who truly stand to profit.

The biggest "everybody" benefit will come from thehotels and after party type stuff that is going on downtown and the taxes they generate...but, as you say, you aren't annexed - so you're not gonna get fuck all.

Particularly for folks like you, the new Formula One track has really transformed the place that they live from a sleepy suburb into a bustling business zone crawling with people, cars and traffic. I imagine I wouldn't be happy with that either, feeling like I am a prisoner in my own home. All I can say is that I hope it is very limited in duration for you, to one big weekend a year (and maybe a few others like MotoGP).

What I think I dislike most is being constantly told how wonderful this is for Austin's economy, and how much money it brings in for local governments. Blah blah blah. I'll believe that when my property taxes go down. So let's just call this what it is: a boondoggle for mostly rich folks who can afford to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on not just tickets, but hotels, parties, etc. A giant supply-side trickle-down stimulus. The State of Texas is giving them $25 million per race, for 10 years. For that, I better see some fucking amazing economic benefits. But most of the jobs created are temporary, and don't pay much beyond minimum wage.

Enough of my rant. Personally, I didn't go anywhere near downtown this weekend, even though I'm only about a mile a way. Of course, that's also because I have a nasty cold. But a 15-minute bus ride takes me right to downtown and Congress Ave. Come live in the city!

Cheers,

Henry

Logged

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." - Butch Hancock, Musician, The Flatlanders

Your state is PAYING them 25 million a year just for the priviledge of having them come and use your track?

Wow.

I'd really be interested in seeing some final tally tax revenue stats in this thread at some future date that backs up the claims of benefit.

Yes, $25 million a year for 10 years, for a total of $250 million. This from Texas Governor Rick Perry, who boasts about being so fiscally conservative. Apparently it's OK for the state government to give many to corporations, just not to people.

Logged

"Life in Lubbock, Texas, taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you're going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love." - Butch Hancock, Musician, The Flatlanders

What I think I dislike most is being constantly told how wonderful this is for Austin's economy, and how much money it brings in for local governments. Blah blah blah. I'll believe that when my property taxes go down. So let's just call this what it is: a boondoggle for mostly rich folks who can afford to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on not just tickets, but hotels, parties, etc. A giant supply-side trickle-down stimulus. The State of Texas is giving them $25 million per race, for 10 years. For that, I better see some fucking amazing economic benefits. But most of the jobs created are temporary, and don't pay much beyond minimum wage.

OK well that pretty much sums up my slant today. If this is such a great great investment, I wish they'd show us the figures on our return. Yes, my property taxes have gone down each year since they announced it, but that's because my property value has gone down. Like 30%. At least I know where we're going to be living for a while, because we can't afford to sell.

Monaco / Monte Carlo F1 is the biggest rat fuck of the trashiest superrich I have ever seen, and every car company in the world spending briefcases of cash. And that web site says the direct benefit is a rather modest 100 million. Not sure Texas can realistically expect a huge direct profit.

(And F1 races can be exciting and fun, for anyone. Anyone who loves car culture, or is into sport statistics. The locations can be great. Monaco is amazing and all the cars speeding through the city its pretty surreal and sensual. If London has a street circuit it will be incredible!)

Reminds me of olympic game hosting. Local citizens will invariably foot the bill. Developers make money, as do organizing committees. Cities or Nations get cachet and bragging rights.

Everytime local developers and ego starved local politicians work up enthusiasm for a bid for Winter Olympics in french speaking switzerland, the citizens vote and tell them when hell freezes over will they be stuck with the tab.

« Last Edit: November 20, 2012, 05:03:41 AM by mecch »

Logged

“From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need” 1875 K Marx